Tag: Galaxy

The incredibly clever modders over at XDA developers have managed to find out a way to enable phone calls on the Samsung Galaxy Tab.

It started with a forum member, Jyveafk, rooting his Galaxy Tab and trying to install the phone.apk module on it. After failing quite a few times, and some trial and error, Jyveafk finally managed to flash his Galaxy Tab to enable phone calls on it.

Samsung has rolled out a minor software update for the Sprint Epic 4G. The DI07 update should be available for all Epic owners at the time of reading this article. The DI07 software update fixes some bugs present in the software and optimizes it as well. This software update also adds Media Hub’ functionality to the 4G handset from Sprint.

Media Hub provides Epic owners access to the most popular movies and TV shows. Here is the official change-log from Samsung :

The Epic 4G belongs to the Galaxy S series of handsets from Samsung. The phone features a 4-inch touch-screen with a slide-out QWERTY keyboard. Hopefully, the Epic 4G will get its Android 2.2 update soon as well.

The Samsung Galaxy S series of handsets are one of the best performing Android handsets out there. The credit for this goes to the 1 GHz Hummingbird processor and the PowerVR SGX540 graphics processor inside the handset. No other Android handset out there can come close to the Galaxy S in terms of pure graphics performance. The Galaxy S has the best combination of CPU+GPU found in an Android phone right now. Now this is all set to change with the Orion the successor to the Hummingbird CPU from Samsung.

In an official press release, Samsung unveiled the successor to the Hummingbird CPU the Orion. The new Orion platform features a dual-core 1Ghz Cortex A9 processor and a GPU which is 5 times more powerful than the current GPU on the Galaxy S. The Orion platform also supports HDMI 1.3a and multiple display support (up to three). It also allows for 1080p video decoding and encoding.

The CPU will be available to selected customers’ later this year and mass production of the CPU will begin in early 2011.

Samsung announced the highly anticipated Galaxy Tab few days ago. However, what the company did not announce was the pricing of the device. Rumors are floating around on the Internet about the pricing of the device. The specification of the Galaxy Tab looks very promising and its success now solely depends on its price. It is very important for Samsung to price the device right. Now time for the bad news.

Slashgear managed to get their hands on a screenshot of the pricing detail of the unlocked Galaxy Tab from Amazon and things looks pretty bad. From the leaked screenshot, it looks like the unlocked Galaxy Tab will be priced at Euros 799 or $1000. Now that is definitely way too much for a tablet I or for that matter anyone else would like to shell out. Rumors also suggest that the subsidized version of the Galaxy Tab will cost anywhere between $200-$400 which definitely hits the sweet spot for me.

Hopefully, Samsung will work closely with network operators to subsidize the price of the Galaxy Tab. Otherwise, I doubt the Galaxy Tab will be an iPad killer as many people had hoped for.

The folks over at Electronista managed to shoot a video of the Samsung Galaxy Tab in live testing in Sydney. The Galaxy Tab was caught in a train in the hands of a guy who apparently works for some telecommunication company. The Galaxy Tab has a 7-inch screen with 3G capability, as the video confirms. When the person using the Galaxy Tab was enquired about the device, he only said that the device was awesomeand mentioned that it was quite differentfrom the Apple iPad.

As seen from the above video, the device seems to have a very responsive UI. This indicates that the Galaxy Tab will feature the same 1 GHz Hummingbird processor which currently powers the Samsung Galaxy S. The responsive UI may also indicate that the device is running Android 2.2. The public testing of the Galaxy Tab suggests that the device is pretty close to its launch.

I guess Samsung must be busy applying the final touches to the UI of the Tab, and talking to various network providers for subsidizing the price of the tablet with a 3G contract.

There have been many rumors about the Samsung Galaxy Tab, the 7 inch Android tablet which will soon be launched by Samsung.

We first heard that the Samsung Galaxy Tab will be launched at IFA Berlin 2010, on September 3.

Now Engadget has uncovered that the Samsung Galaxy Tablet will be available with Vodafone UK on contract. The information was discovered on Vodafone UK’s systems. No other information is out yet, but Vodafone UK will probably be among the first carriers to get the Galaxy Tab on its network.

The Galaxy Tablet will be a bigger, better version of the Samsung Galaxy S. It will run Android 2.2 Froyo and will presumably get an upgrade to Android 3.0 Gingerbread. It will be powered by a 1.2 GHz Cortex A8 processor and will have a 7 inch SuperAMOLED capacitive touchscreen display. It has 16 GB internal storage and supports up to 32 GB microSD cards.

It will be one of the first serious Android tablets and the first major threat to the iPad’s reign.

Apple iPhone 4 has been a runaway success, but Android phones are also selling like hotcakes with over 160,000 device activations per day. Most of the high-end Android phones are similar to each other in terms of hardware. They feature the usual 1 GHz Snapdragon processor, 512MB of RAM, and an AMOLED/TFTscreen with its size varying from 3.7-inch to 4.3-inch.

The only exception to my last statement will be the Samsung Galaxy S. The Galaxy S is a true high-end Android phone with many new features, which are yet to be found in any other Android phone. I have been using the Samsung Galaxy S phone for more than a week now and here is a hands-on review of the phone.

Unboxing And Build Quality

The retail box of the Galaxy S has a pretty much O.K. size. I would have preferred a smaller box, as it would have been a bit eco-friendly but then Samsung would have had a tough time packing in the charger, and other accessories of the phone. The retail box consisted of:

1x Samsung Galaxy S

1x Travel Charger

1x G7 1500mAh battery

1x USB Data Cable

1x In-Earphones

1x Leather Case

The build quality of the phone is pretty ok. The handset is primarily made up of plastic, with just a metal frame running across the body of the phone. The back cover of the phone is way too thin. In fact, the first time I opened the back cover I thought I would break it in a week or so. Thankfully, I have been proved wrong.

The back cover is made of tough plastic, and will not break off on a day-to-day basis usage. The phone has a very slim waistline of 9.9 mm. Even though the phone has a 4-inch screen, it is extremely light. Stats say the phone weighs in at 119g, but when you hold the phone, you will surely doubt the stats! Galaxy S gets an extra brownie point point for the nice mircoUSB sliding cover.

Hardware

Samsung Galaxy S is the first Android phone to feature a 4-inch Super-AMOLED screen, and it is just BRILLIANT! The blacks on the Super-AMOLED screen are even deeper than my black hair. The screen has a very wide viewing angle, and has great sunlight legibility. I had no problem whatsoever in using the Galaxy S under direct sunlight.

The Galaxy S is powered by an ARM Cortex A8 processor running at 1 GHz. The Cortex A8 processor is better than the Snapdragon in all the benchmarks we conducted, but not by a huge margin. The 512MB of RAM also make sure that the phone is never low on RAM. The phone comes in two storage capacities of 8GB or 16GB. Of the available space, 2GB of the space is used as the ROM of the phone. So users never need to worry about running out of free space while installing applications and games from the Android market.

The Galaxy S is also the first Android phone in the market to feature Bluetooth 3.0. The back of the phone features a 5MP camera, with touch focus and smile detection.

Software

The Galaxy S runs on the Android OS v2.1 (Ã‰clair). On top of the Android OS, Samsung has loaded their TouchWiz 3.0 UI as well. TouchWiz in its latest form has improved a lot. TouchWiz has added options to switch on – Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Silent Mode and Vibration mode to the popular Android notification bar, which is definitely very handy. TouchWiz also automatically imports your contacts from Facebook, Twitter and Google Contacts. Another nice feature of Touchwiz is that a right swipe on the contact will initiate a call and a left swipe will message the selected contact in the Contacts application.

The 1 GHz processor ensured smooth operation of the phone. The phone never felt slow, except sometimes when the stallingissue occurred. Sometimes, the messaging, contacts application on the phone takes some time to open up, whereas third party applications work just fine. At the time of writing this article, new firmware for the Galaxy S was released. The stalling issue has been fixed to a certain extent with this new firmware.

Samsung has also pre-loaded the phone with quite a few applications. There is a third party eBook reader on the phone – Aldiko eBook. Samsung has also loaded the phone with the AllShare application which makes your phone acts as a media server. Other pre-installed applications include Layar, ThinkFree Office, Daily Briefing, File Manager and Social Hub.

Along with the Android Market, there is also a Samsung Apps store. As of now, the Samsung Application store has only 5 apps including Asphalt 5. The phone will get some extra brownie points for the support of Xvid, DivX, and mkv codecs. The phone easily played back a 4.7 GB mkv file without any hiccups.

The music quality of the phone is decent as well. The Galaxy S also features an equalizer, along with 5.1 channel Dolby surround sound and music effects. The music player of the phone simply looks outstanding on the 4-inch Super-AMOLED screen.

Camera, GPS And Internet Browsing

The Galaxy S features a 5MP camera at its back. Sadly, the phone lacks a LED flash so night photography with this phone is a strict no-no. The 5MP camera is a decent performer in good lighting conditions. A major problem is that the 3D Gallery of the phone does not show you the camera pictures at their full resolution.

Also thanks to the Super-AMOLED screen, any snap you click from the camera looks good on the phone. It is only when you view the picture on your PC, do you notice how the picture has come out in reality.The phone is also capable of recording videos in 720p HD resolution. The quality of the videos is pretty decent, and the fps of the videos shot hovers around the 30fps mark.

Here are some camera samples of the device :

The GPS of the phone is a mixed bag. Using Google Maps, I was never able to get a satellite lock inside my house. Outdoors, I was able to get a GPS lock in less than 10 seconds.

The Galaxy S is made for Internet browsing. The superb web-browser of the Android OS and the Super-AMOLED screen of the Galaxy S are a match made in heaven. The web-browser also supports pinch to zoom. Pages load quickly, and text reflow automatically adjusts the text on the screen for easy readability. The web-browser has a minimalistic interface, which certainly works in its favor. The only downside of the web-browser is that it lacks Flash. However, the phone will get Flash support with update to Android 2.2 (Froyo).

Battery Life And Conclusion

The Galaxy S is a super-phone. The Super-AMOLED screen, and the 1 GHz processor make this phone a must buy. The pros of the phone easily outweigh the cons of it. The battery life of the phone is also pretty remarkable, even though the phone has a 4-inch screen and a 1 GHz processor. The phone lasted me a day of heavy usage on a single charge. This is definitely better than most of the power-packed Android phones like the HTC EVO 4G, Incredible etcetera.

The 16GB version of the Galaxy S is available in India for Rs 28,500. At the current price point, I don’t think there is any other phone which can offer a better VFM than the Galaxy S. If your budget permits, go for the Galaxy S without a doubt! The phone definitely lives up to its tagline of Future Beyond.

Samsung had launched the Galaxy S just a few weeks ago. The Galaxy S is currently one of the best Android phones in the market right now with a 4-inch Super-AMOLED screen, 1Ghz Cortex A8 processor and 512MB of RAM. The device has got ravishing reviews all over the interwebs. Samsung has even managed to sell around 200,000 Galaxy S in 10 days in South Korea. Now it looks like Samsung is already working on the successor of the Galaxy S.

A leaked picture of the successor of the Galaxy S a.k.a Galaxy S I9200 has been found on the internet. The phone is rumored to feature a 4.3-inch Super-AMOLED display with a resolution of 1280×720. The phone will be powered by a 2 GHz processor (!), and will have 1GB of RAM, and 4GB of ROM. The camera at the back of the device will be an 8MP one, with 1080p video recording capability.

The phone will also be one of the first phone t be released in the market with Gingerbread pre-loaded. According to me, the specification of the phone surely seems to be cooked up. It is way too early for Samsung to even start working on a Galaxy S successor.

The Samsung Galaxy S is the most powerful and impressive Android phone out there in the market. The only thing it lacks is a QWERTY keyboard, and an LED flash. It was just a few days ago we had showed you the leaked images of the Samsung Galaxy S Pro. The Samsung Galaxy S Pro is similar to the Samsung Galaxy S, except that it features a QWERTY keyboard.

The folks over at AndroidCentral have managed to get some kind of confirmation about the hardware specification of the Samsung Galaxy S Pro. The phone features a 1 GHz ARM Cortex A8 processor, along with 512MB of RAM and 8.2gigs of internal memory. The screen size of the phone is reported to be around 4and yes, it is Super-AMOLED. Along with Wi-Fi b/g/n, the phone also has Wimax.

Additional SIM card slot points were also found on the phone, which means a variant of the phone for the rest of the world is on the cards as well. The camera at the back of the phone remains the same at 5MP, and has 720p video recording capability as well. The slider mechanism of the phone is very smooth, and the QWERTY keyboard of the phone is impressive as well.

The only problem the tipster had with the phone was that it had a plastic-y feel to it. Hopefully, Samsung will announce the phone within a couple of weeks from now on.

Looks like the tablet fever has caught up with Samsung as well. The company has just officiallyannounced the Galaxy Tab, a tablet device. According to Engadget, the Galaxy Tab has a 7-inch high-resolutionscreen. On top of the Android OS, the Samsung’s popular TouchWiz UI is also running. The Galaxy Tab tablet was officially announced by a tweet from Samsung Blog South Africa.

The tweet goes as follows Android-powered Samsung Galaxy S and Galaxy Tab (tablet). More pics to follow.The link to the image does not work now. Looks like, Samsung has deleted the picture after the tweet was made. Engadget did manage to get hold of the image before it was deleted. The image below shows the Samsung Galaxy S (left) and the Galaxy Tab (right) tablet.

The screen on the Galaxy Tab is rumored to be AMOLED (Super AMOLED, perhaps?). It is also rumored that Samsung will also launch an app store for the Galaxy Tab. As of now, Google does not allow tablets to be equipped with the Android market. No further information about the specifications of the Galaxy Tab are available as of now. It will be interesting to know whether the Galaxy Tab will be running the Android OS v2.1 or v2.2.